indelible

"A species in which everyone was General Patton would not succeed, any more than would a race in which everyone was Vincent Van Gogh.  I prefer to think that the planet needs athletes, philosophers, actuaries, painters, scientists;  it needs the warmhearted, the hardhearted, the coldhearted and the weakhearted .... Indeed, the very presence of outstanding strengths presupposes that energy needed in other areas has been channeled away from them."

~ Allen Shawn, Composer and Author

In the visual arena of graphic design, photography and painting, it's sometimes said that creative use of color yields the most eye-catching imagery. I don't believe that's necessarily true. Some of the most beautiful, moving, and evocative works I've ever encountered are rendered in simple black and white. I have come to believe, however, that few images can really captivate attention without a sufficient level of contrast.

Our world is unfair and unpredictable, yet indisputably vibrant. At times, for many of us, it can even seem a bit too vibrant. Occasionally we yearn for an existence rendered without such stark and varied distinctions. It seems that people inhabiting that sort of reality would have little problem identifying with one another. Their values and vision would be compatible. Ideas on world order, on societal structure, on child rearing and crisis handling and career trajectory would be easily, perhaps even automatically accepted. And there would be few compelling reasons to strongly dislike somebody else.

There is a book, a fairly dated book but nonetheless exceedingly well-regarded, that was written by Marilyn Bates and psychologist David Keirsey. Its title is Please Understand Me, and its authors note that we human beings differ in remarkably resonant and fundamental ways. We strive toward different goals. We hurt in different places. We have different motives and values, needs and priorities -- and as a result, we often think, perceive, conceptualize and comprehend in accordance with our own unique traits.

If we embrace this line of reasoning, I guess it's no real surprise that we would see others around us as dissimilar; that we would sometimes view those dissimilarities as strange, or troubling, or lazy, or flawed, or conceited, or wicked, or frightening. What I think is happening is that we're unwittingly assigning ourselves, our own personal perceptions, the role of lighthouse -- standing fixed and stationary, predictably stable and constant and resolute, in a defined and unmoving space. Certainly, the "window" out of which we view the world doesn't feel like it's shifting or changing in a reactive way from one day to the next. And so we conclude that it's others who must be like boats skimming and drifting across the waves, rising and falling in choppy irregular patterns, taking on positions that are always, ultimately, relative to ours.

David Keirsey refers to a phenomenon called the "Pygmalion project," arguing that we humans harbor a subliminal need to make those near us more similar to ourselves. Certainly we have some degree of freedom in selecting our friends, our spouses, our employers, our team members; and while we may settle into these choices, get a little too comfortable at times, we don't always seek out our own mirror images. What Keirsey postulates is that we can sometimes become just slightly preoccupied with "coaching" and "improving" our loved ones, acquaintances, apprentices and/or children -- trying to make them more tough-minded or tender, more affable or organized or analytical based upon our own world views and convictions.

And yet scripture provides quiet reminders that God is shaping each of us into our own unique sculpture. This suggests that we may be pliable up to a point, but that certain inherent traits are -- quite likely -- intended to be there. Author Susan Cain spotlights the story of Moses. She points out that when God first informed Moses of his imminent role as liberator of the Jews, Moses instantly demurred, pointing out his humble station and lack of verbal eloquence. It was only when God paired Moses with his more outgoing brother Aaron -- who would speak in public while Moses crafted words behind the scenes -- that Moses accepted his task. When we think about the mighty Moses, it's easy to forget that he started out as an introspective shepherd who worked for his father-in-law and was, by his own admission, "slow of speech and tongue."

How many of us feel similarly slow or ill-equipped, damaged or weak or shamed, in one way or another? Individually, in many respects, we are as different as winter from summer. Some of us love to speak in public. Others prefer to analyze figures independently. Some of us want everything to be neat and tidy and perpetually well-controlled. Others thrive on free-flowing energy, shifting situations, a regular diet of change. Some are poetic. Others are technical. Together, we are like cogs and gears and pistons powering an engine that has the ability to change and move the world.

If, that is, we can devise some way to work together. The various platforms that arise in politics, in religion, in healthcare and welfare and education -- I believe that these can sometimes evolve into temperamental arenas, combat zones where human beings draw our lines and strive to shape an existence that is closer to our own personal mode of understanding. I picture God observing all this the way a conductor oversees the rehearsal of an amateur orchestra, the way a patient father watches his children express and act out their differences with benevolent concern. Sometimes, quite unavoidably, that concern shifts abruptly to alarm. The flutes, after all, were never built to sound like the tubas. The introverts were never intended to think or act like the extroverts. The gift of free will is a double-edged sword -- and overzealous attempts to change one another don't always yield a transformation, but a scar.

To me, the monument can't begin to take shape, the imagery can't begin to develop, the melody can't begin to really flow until we strive to understand, to compromise, to accept that our innate contrasts were put in place as part of a larger plan and picture defined by these very differences. Of course as human beings, we're powerless to perceive this larger pattern, so it's our job to trust as we work to blend our myriad voices. This can be grueling and challenging work, demanding copious amounts of awareness and vigilance, patience and penance and grace. But I suspect that it may be the only real work that matters -- the means to carving out a consequential legacy in this earthly lifetime.

In the end, I believe, it is the effort that honors the parent; it is the trying that leads to triumph; it is the journey that is the reward.